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Samuel Williams

Dignity In Action

By | Care, News, Social | No Comments

Images of patients in corridors on trolleys, terrible news stories of care homes residents abused and neglected, overworked medical staff, lack of care assistants meaning home visits are down to just 15 minutes… These are the headlines that grab our attention, making us feel angry and upset and quite rightly so. Who’s fault is it? Who’s job is it to fix all this…. On 1st February – Dignity in Action Day – I’d like everybody to take a minute to stop and think about their own role in making sure everybody – every age, every background, every situation – is treated with dignity and respect. 83,816 people are registered as Dignity…

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Positive Minds – Socialising through technology

By | Care, News, Psychology, Social, Technology | No Comments

We have something a little bit different for our first blog of the New Year. We are really pleased to share news of a successful lottery funding application for a super mental health organisation in Bradford. Rally Round will be included as part of the fantastic activity delivered under the new scheme, which focuses on improving ‘connectivity’ for older people in the District. The Chair of Positive Minds, Marilyn Foster, has worked tirelessly for many years raising awareness about depression and other mental health concerns for older people. She heads up a consortium of like-minded groups and charities that together form Positive Minds. The project was based on research showing…

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Carers’ A&E visits can be preventable… But how?

By | Care, Hospital | No Comments

“One in 10 unpaid carers who called 999 or took their loved one to A&E did so because they did not know where else to go, a report by Carers UK suggests. Their snapshot online survey also found that one in five used A&E because they could not get hold of a GP or district nurse. The charity said a lack of local care and support services was contributing to a rise in A&E visits.” (On the BBC website front page today – 30.09.16) (View article on the BBC website) Whilst I openly admit that I am a huge advocate of support for carers and always will be, I would…

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asking for help

If you want help, just ask. You might be surprised!

By | Asking for help, Psychology | No Comments

For a lot of people, the idea of asking for help is daunting. We assume the person or people we ask will say no or that we are demanding too much of them. So we often don’t ask when we need help or wait till we are desperate. But are we right to be so worried? I’ve been thinking this over for a while now and doing a bit of Googling. Guess what, Francis Flynn and Vanessa Lake, two researchers in Psychology at Stanford University, have looked into this very question, with some interesting findings. In a paper, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in July 2008,…

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Take control of technology

By | Social, Technology | No Comments

We are surrounded by technology, there is virtually nothing you cannot now do online… Well that is unless you can’t get online. Many people are still identifying barriers to their using technology – some valid, some myths, some nonsense – but why shouldn’t everyone be given the confidence and skills to make IT work for them. Cost, Safety/Security and Age can all be defended. Point blank refusal to learn (in the case of my step-father) is harder to challenge but the most worrying of all has to be – ‘I don’t need it’. There are too many things to list in life that we ‘don’t need’, that we have ‘managed…

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Loneliness

By | Care, Psychology, Social | No Comments

Reaction to reading Sue Bourne’s article in The Guardian exploring loneliness. In this fascinating article Sue Bourne writing in The Guardian explores loneliness. I found her finishing statement particularly powerful and resonant ‘People of all ages missed someone to do nothing with. To chat idly. To sit next to. Part of me feels we have to train ourselves to enjoy solitude more. And perhaps also work harder at being kind to others and creating new support networks to replace the traditional ones, now lost.’ I’ve often found myself reading articles that explicitly place loneliness as the preserve of the elderly. The people who have had, and lost, friends and family…

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